Corruption
by swirling-dimension
Summary: The Seven Deadly Sins were created to distinguish raw emotion and give them a meaning. It was only after an overwhelming population of the Universe by the Supreme Kais that they became active and left The Heavens to engulf their purpose. Too bad Gohan is a prime target for the most violent of the Sins: Wrath.
1. Chapter 1

This wasn't supposed to be happening. The bad thoughts, the sick feeling after a restless night - none of it made sense. It had been two years since his last panic attack. He figured that he'd be over it by now! But here he is having thoughts about death, killing and hurting people. He thought it might be a relapse even though none of his current thoughts have been about the aftermath of The Cell Games.

Gohan turned and faced the window while lying on his bed. This phase has been lasting for longer than a week, and he wanted to be rid of it immediately. The imagery of you mutilating your family is pretty horrific. He doesn't know why he dreams of it at night; even during the daytime the pictures are there. He buries his face into his pillow, willing the thoughts to go away.

The bedroom door creaks open; he lies still. The soft pit-patter of small feet can be heard followed by a giggle. Gohan smiles into his pillow keeping still. A moment of silence passes.

"RRRAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!" A shrieking ball of black mass cannonballs on to Gohan's stomach. He prays to Kami that he can withstand the weight of a three year old and not be phased by it.

"Oh no!" Gohan plays along. "It's a lion! Somebody! Help me!" He flails about helplessly.

"No, Gohan! I'm a dinosaur! A candyboar!" corrected Goten.

"My mistake. A fine candyboar you are, indeed." Gohan and Chi-Chi have learned to not question Goten's pronunciations. He would learn the correct terms later on, so why spend time trying to push them on him now?

"IMDABESS" Goten shrieked.

Gohan laughed. He grabbed his brother by the waist, and laid him down on the bed. Goten looked up at his big brother with curiosity in his eyes, then fear. Gohan had both of his hands raised over his head and he was wiggling his fingers. Oh god no.

"Mr. Candyboar, I hope you have good reflexes, because you're gonna need them!" He struck. Goten could not control his laughter as Gohan continued his merciless tickle fight. Even though Goten surrendered in between his giggles, Gohan did not let up.

"Are you sure you want me to stop?" Gohan questioned.

"Y-yeeess!" screeched Goten.

"Hmm, I dunno…" Gohan did let up a little.

"Pleeease?"

"Well… okay." Gohan ceased fire and let Goten get up. He couldn't help but imagine his little brother's head between the floor and the bottom of his foot. As he would press down, Goten's face would fold over itself, and Gohan could hear the bone of his skull cracking. He was so small, it would be an instant. He would surely- wait. Why was he suddenly thinking about that again? Gohan shook his head to relieve himself of such thoughts.

"Gohan, what's wrong?" asked Goten. "Does your head hurt?"

"Only a little bit, Goten." Gohan assured him. "Nothing to worry about. Let's go eat now, okay?"

"Yay foot!" Goten cheered and ran out of the room chanting, "Foot! Foot! Foot!"

Chi-Chi smiled at the sight of her two boys rushing into the dining room. "Morning, boys."

"Morning, mom." they said in unison.

"Gohan," Chi-Chi began. "I'm going to start you off with a physics pop quiz today after you eat, and then it's straight to ancient history for the rest of the day."

"M-kay." Gohan replied, stuffing his face full of food.

Goten laughed at his brother. "Gohan's face is fat!"

"Goten," Chi-Chi scolded. "Mind your manners!"

"Sorry, mama."

The morning passed without a hitch and the early afternoon came to a close. Goten lay on the couch passed out from overeating during lunch. Gohan helped his mother clean up the kitchen, and put away leftovers.

"I can take care of the rest, Gohan," Chi-Chi assured him. "Why don't you go and finish your studies?"

"Oh, well, I've already finished my reports, mom."

"Is that so?"

"Yeah," Gohan started. His gaze was nervous and he had trouble looking Chi-Chi in the eyes. "I was wondering, since I'm done with all of that, would it be okay if I went and hung out with Piccolo for the rest of the day?"

"Piccolo?" Chi-Chi scrunched her nose in distaste. It was blatantly obvious that she disliked the alien and his being around her children. She didn't even approve of Goku training with him.

"I know that you don't like him very much…" Gohan tried his best to defend his mother's side as much as Piccolo's. Truth be told, when it came to confronting Chi-Chi, he was a gutless flip-flopper.

"That's quite the understatement, Gohan," Chi-Chi commented. She smiled a bit when her son responded through nervous laughter. She eyed the clock for a good minute before straightening her posture and looking Gohan straight in his eyes. They were barely the same height with Gohan being an inch or two taller, but he was still very intimidated by her stature, as he should. "Eight-thirty. If you are gone any later, God help you, Son Gohan you will NOT be allowed outside this house until you graduate, do you understand?"

"Yes, mom." Gohan hugged her. "Thanks, and I'll be sure to be back before bed!" he stated before running out the door.

"Eight-thirty!" Chi-Chi called after him. She sighed tiredly. Raising two Saiyan hybrids was like herding two giant bulls through a China shop without breaking anything while they were mad with anger. Especially teenagers. Gohan was generally a well behaved boy, but he still had his moments with that attitude of his.

She sat down on the couch next Goten who was still sleeping. After a couple of minutes, she got up and walked to the supply closet, returning with a blanket in hand. She repositioned Goten so that he was laying on his back, pillow underneath his head then lastly, she placed the blanket over him and tucked him in. She kissed his forehead before walking upstairs and wishing that children came with pause buttons.


	2. Chapter 2

_Wake up._

Gohan groaned as he grabbed the bed covers and wrapped them tightly around him. There's no way it was morning already. He had just gone to sleep not even an hour ago. Dare he look out the window to ease his mind? He did, and regretted it. Only because his mother would have his hide. He turned around and glared at the red numbers emitting on his alarm clock. Why didn't it go off? He reached over and grabbed a hold of the damn thing and double checked to see the alarm was broken by setting it to a false time. He decided that it did indeed work well after jumping two feet in the air to the noise. Gohan sighed as he set the clock back down and got up and dressed.

_'Mom's gonna kill me for sleeping in until thirty to noon.'_ Gohan thought.

He crept downstairs into the living room and not a soul was around. Thinking this was odd, he made his way to the kitchen and dining room which were also empty. He made his way to Goten's room only to find that vacant as well.

"What?" Gohan questioned. He suddenly had a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach, but quickly set it aside. "Maybe they went shopping? Yeah… or just went to visit the Briefs? Though mom usually leaves me a note saying so, and what to do for my studies."

Gohan reached out with his energy to search for his mom and brother. "... Why are they on the lookout tower? How did they even get up there? Did something happen? Why didn't mom tell me?"

_She abandoned you._

Whoa, where did that even come from? Gohan shook his head. This was no time to be brooding. He decided to go to the lookout tower to find out what was going on. He locked the door to the house and took to the skies.

As he approached the tower he could feel a higher energy closing in on him. Closer examination revealed it to be Vegeta. Gohan's awareness spiked up, seeing as how Vegeta never talked to him except to make him spar in the gravity room. Maybe there actually was something going down that even Vegeta knew about, but no one else bothered to inform Gohan. Seriously, he was one of the strongest fighters on the planet why would anyone _not_ tell him? Being afraid that his mother would swear a vendetta against the messenger was reason enough he supposed, but seriously.

So, Gohan stopped mid-flight to see if he could get any information off Vegeta. That is until Vegeta started firing ki blasts at him. Ok, what the Hell? Was this some new way of initiating a sparring session? Somebody needed to teach Vegeta that it really wouldn't kill him to just walk up to Gohan and ask, or in his case demand that he fight.

The blasts coming from Vegeta were sporadic and unfocused. The ones that were in Gohan's line of sight, he brushed off with ease. Vegeta made a beeline for Gohan, screaming at him, who immediately got out of the way before he got rammed into. The Saiyan came to a screeching halt then turned to face his victim with burning rage.

Gohan tried to make himself look non-threatening. "Uh, hey, Veg-"

Vegeta got right in his face and started swinging at him.

_'Shit, that didn't work! The Hell is even his problem?'_ Gohan blocked every punch that Vegeta threw at him.

"Vegeta!" Gohan gasped through each blow. "What are you doing?"

"Shut up, brat!" Vegeta caught Gohan unguarded and kneed him in the stomach. He watched the hybrid step back in pain before he added on, "Like you knew this wouldn't come back to bite you! What made you think you could level an entire town and get away with it?"

_He is jealous._

Gohan jerked his head up in surprise. Had Vegeta just accused him of murder? Genocide no less! Vegeta looked absolutely livid. Gohan knew it would be useless to get information out of him. He had to get up to the lookout, but to do that, he needed to get rid of Vegeta.

_Kill him._

No, not that. He needed to_ distract_ Vegeta, not kill him. Gohan decided the best course of action would be to humor him. "What's wrong, Vegeta? Have you gotten soft finally after all this time?"

"Snarky pup." Vegeta growled. "Seems as though you have finally embraced your true race. Too bad everyone you once held dear wants you dead now. Tell me, brat, was it worth it?"

"How do you even know it was_ me_?" Gohan questioned.

Vegeta scoffed, "By sensing you and we also had the luxury of a news crew who survived your slaughter and caught you on tape destroying the entire town!"

_'The news? They recorded me killing an entire town? Wait, no! I never did any of that! I… I would have remembered?'_ Gohan didn't know why he was considering the possibilities. He knew it was a lie. It had to be!

"Vegeta," Gohan decided to be straight with him. "Whatever you saw, on the news, that wasn't me."

"You are not serious!" Vegeta gaped at the boy. "You just stood there and basically admitted to your genocide, and now you're suddenly going act like you did nothing?!"

"That's because I_ didn't_ do anything!" Gohan pressed. "Didn't you even consider it may have been someone or something imitating me?"

"No two lifeforms have the same energy, dumbass." Vegeta glared at him. "You killed all in that town, and I am done playing games with you!"

Vegeta collected up as much energy as he could and used it to power up into his Super Saiyan form. Gohan followed suit shortly after, and awaited Vegeta's next move which was a leg calf to the forearm followed by little punches here and there. Gohan leapt backward for space, and Vegeta followed.

_'Shit, I need to get him off me!'_ Gohan began to formulate a plan blocking kicks and punches all the meanwhile. He jumped into the air and flew toward the sun and as he predicted, Vegeta blindly pursued. When he was far enough, he quickly turned around, placed his hands over his eyes, fingers spread. "SOLAR FLARE!"

Vegeta had no time to react as his retinas began to burn. He covered his eyes, cursing at the young Saiyan who made his escape right then.

"Now to get some real answers." Gohan muttered while flying up to Dende's lookout. He decided he wouldn't rely on Vegeta for the truth. He hoped it was all a lie.

As he drew closer to the lookout, he began to feel the presence of others such as Piccolo, Krillin, Yamcha, and of course, his mother and brother. He retreated out of his Super state before he touched down on the marbled flooring. Taking one glance at everyone in front of him, he suddenly regretted coming here.

Everyone of the fighters looked so intense and, for some reason, angry. Had Vegeta been right all along? Gohan still shrugged that option off. He took one step forward before retreating back again once everyone in front of him raised their guard. With only the three fighters in front of him, Gohan could feel his mother and brother's presence from inside the palace. Why wasn't she coming out to see him?

_You betrayed their trust in you._

Before Gohan could say anything, he saw Dende walking towards him. Gohan sighed with relief. Maybe now he could set things straight. As Dende approached, Gohan felt another energy source behind him.

_'Great, Vegeta managed to catch up.'_ Gohan groaned. He didn't want this encounter turning into a bloodbath. He watched as Dende looked behind him, and put up his hand as if silently telling Vegeta to 'stop'. Then, he turned to Gohan.

"You need to leave." Dende stated simply.

"W-What?" Gohan stuttered in disbelief.

"After you… what you did," Dende's voice cracked. It took him a minute to calm down before he continued on. "I am sorry, Gohan. Your actions have made you an enemy to the planet. You must leave, and you are not welcome back."

_They hate you._

Gohan stared at the Namekian, not believing what he had just heard. His worst fear had come true. Vegeta was right. He was right all along. He lightly swayed back and forth as a sudden wave of dizziness befell him. He regained control of his bodily movements and focused his gaze to Dende.

_They are going to kill you._

He laughed. Uncontrollable, messy laughter escaped his vocal cords. Everyone around him stared him down, not letting their guard up for a second. It almost sounded maniacal.

"Okay," Gohan composed himself. "Seriously, what's going on? Is this some form of sick joke?"

"We could ask the same of you." Yamcha stated bluntly.

"You're really not yourself, are you?" Krillin observed. "Have you totally lost all sense of compassion? Do you not feel that you are responsible for the destruction of that town?"

"Destruction?" Gohan repeated. Like Vegeta said. "I killed them?"

"Of course you did, brat!" Vegeta retorted. "We are not going to just let you walk away, I don't care what the Namekian says!"

Dende turned to Vegeta, and was about to scold him when Piccolo piped up. "Dende, you must listen when we say that Gohan is no longer one of us. He is a murderer, and he must pay for his crimes."

_'This is happening.'_ Gohan gawked at Piccolo._ 'This is real. It's not a bad dream.'_

Gohan glanced to Dende, silently begging for help. Dende only offered a glimpse of a silent apology, before turning around and walking back towards the palace. Leaving Gohan's fate in the hands of his former friends.


End file.
